When Should My Child Start School?

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Monday January 11, 2010 00:00

Botswana government policy is that children can be accepted for standard one from the age of five-and-a-half.

'We want all children to start learning at an early age and we believe that five-and-half is a good age for children to start school,' said Primary Education Director Fraser Tlhoiwe.

In various interviews to establish the best school starting age most people preferred their children to start at age six or seven.

'I would rather children start school at age 6 or seven. Five or four is too young,' said One Tenego whose five year-old has not registered for standard one.

This has been the pattern around the country for many years, with only a few children starting school at ages five and four.

It appears though that there is a growing number of parents who want their children to start school at ages earlier than the government's stipulated five-and-half. The children are mostly those who have been to kindergarten.

'We do receive from time to time requests from parents who wish to have their child start standard one before the child has reached the age of five. However as a school we will not accept a child below the age of five for standard one.

We have nursery and reception classes for children of ages three to four, and we  advice such parents to enroll the children into any of those classes,' said Letlhabile Secondary School's Sujatha Reddy.

The reason the school is not accepting younger children, as would be expected of most privately owned schools, is because 'at age five or six, a child can understand and take basic instructions such as sit down or wash your hands, and the child can express herself and understand the environment. A three-year old will not have that much intelligence,' according to Reddy.

Most parents though, still register their children when they are six or in the year the child will be turning six.

'In the past parents would only send their child to school once they were satisfied that the child was intelligent enough to deal with daily challenges he or she would likely face at school. In my case my parents did not send me to school until I was nine as they said I was not yet grown,' said Boseo Nyathi, a self employed plumber,In as much as today's children may be more shrewd than their parents would have been, their parents also find themselves under a lot of pressure - from work related to peer pressure, hence the desire for some to have their children start school earlier.

A new study though warns that sending a child to school at a very early age may be detrimental to the child's development.

The Cambridge Primary Review, issued in the United Kingdom late last year suggests that children should not be taken through formal education until the age of six, as doing it any time soon is not only counterproductive, but may also be harmful.

The study contends that introducing formal education at that age 'alienates' the child, as that is the stage at which parents should be tuning children into learning.

It further warns that Children who are unable to grasp the rigorous formal learning exercise may never recover and may be scarred forever.

'Children need to flourish in their early years. They need the opportunity to build their social skills, their language and their confidence.

They do this through structured play and talk, interacting with each other and with interested and stimulating adults,' it says.

'Extending the early years (nursery) phase to age six or seven would give schools up to three years to work with children to establish positive attitudes to learning and the necessary language and study skills which are crucial to raising standards in the long term,' the study said.

In the meantime, children up to the age of six should be given the more informal, play-based education typically found in nurseries.

'[There is] no evidence that a child who spends more time learning through lessons - as opposed to learning through play - will do better in the long run' the study argues. The researchers suggest that nursery schooling should be up to age six and contends that, 'Children, particularly those from disadvantaged homes benefit from high quality pre-school experiences.'

The researchers conclude their argument on the right age for children to start formal education by arguing that countries where formal education started at ages seven and eight had better primary school results than those where children started earlier.

How do Botswana school results compare for children in the generations that started school at ages seven or eight and sometimes nine and those who started at ages five or six? Is there a need for Botswana's own review of its primary education?